15 - Wave of Mutilation
Waxing the Void Chapter 15
"Call me Kim Cliché!" Claire slammed the bass against her thigh, strings shrieking. "'Cause this bass is a damn stereotype. Kim Gordon, Kim Deal—Christ, is there some law that says girls have to play bass?"
The unlit cigarette bobbed from the corner of her mouth. Sweat darkened her Superchunk t-shirt, hair sticking to her neck in the July heat.
She tried the progression again. Her fingers slipped, the bass neck fighting her.
"Why do you have an unlit smoke in your mouth?" Lenore asked from her milk crate perch, looking up from lyrics she was scribbling in a water-stained composition notebook.
"If I can't play good," Claire muttered around the cigarette, "might as well look sexy cool."
Lenore snorted. "You look like you're trying to seduce a dead fish."
The garage reeked of stale beer and wet dog, amps buzzing in the heat. Pizza boxes from three nights ago attracted flies.
Ely crouched beside a tangle of cables. He grabbed a discarded t-shirt, tore off one sleeve, and started writing with a black Sharpie.
"Try it again," Saul said, his voice strained with forced patience. "Just feel the rhythm, Claire. It's like skating—you don't think about each push, you just flow."
"Flow?" Claire snapped, the bass neck slipping in her sweaty palms. "This thing's fighting me worse than Dutch in a mosh pit."
She demonstrated her singular achievement: "But I can play this!" Launching into the bass line of "Twist of Cain" with exaggerated flourish.
"See? You can play," Saul said, encouraged.
"One song," Claire shot back, stopping abruptly. "One song out of everything we've tried. And it's not even ours."
Dutch counted off another attempt at their original, sticks tapping a slow, patronizing beat. "One-two-three-four, one-two—no, wait. You're rushing the two. The two is crucial, Claire. Without the two—"
"Shut up about the fucking two!" Claire's voice cracked, sharp and desperate, cutting through the garage's humid air like glass. She held up the bass like evidence of a crime. "I am hitting them! They hate me! I believe in your vision, Saul, I really do. But this—"
Her eyes welled up. "This is bullshit. We've been at this for hours, and I sound like a dying walrus."
"Maybe if you stopped overthinking—" Dutch started.
"Maybe if you stopped under-explaining!" Claire shot back. "You keep saying 'feel it' and 'flow with it' like that means something. I need actual instruction, not hippie fortune cookie wisdom."
Lenore looked up from her notebook, pencil ready. "You could always quit."
"Don't tempt me." Claire answered. "God, I'm about to—"
Ely grinned and plopped the makeshift hat on Claire's head. "KIM CLICHÉ" was scrawled across it in bold black letters.
"Perfect," he announced. "The name fits."
Claire touched the hat, almost smiling. "Great. Now I'm branded."
She spat out the cigarette. "I'm dying here, and you're making me into a walking joke."
The garage door screeched open. Ott stood silhouetted against the sun, bass case over his shoulder, Kitty beside him.
Before Ott could speak, Claire thrust the bass at him. "Take it. Please. Before I use it as kindling."
Ott caught the instrument, grinning at Claire's hat. "Y'all sound like a catfight in a dumpster. Gimme that bass."
"He's been driving me crazy," Kitty explained, adjusting her camera. "Keeps mumbling about 'dying without you weirdos.'"
"I'm dying without you weirdos," Ott confirmed, already plugging into the amp.
Four weeks of grinding through the same six songs. Claire sat cross-legged on a milk crate, notebook balanced on her knees, watching them nail "Downstream" for the fourth time in a row.
Dutch's sticks hit the rim shot clean. Ott's fingers walked the bass line—not just holding down the bottom, but finding melodic spaces between the roots and fifths. Saul's voice rode the pocket they'd carved out, raw emotion bleeding through.
"Again," Saul called as the last chord rang out.
They launched back in. Dutch didn't rush the bridge this time. Ott held the low end steady. When they hit the chorus, Claire mouthed along—she knew every word, every change.
The song built urgency from the first chord—three minutes of barely controlled chaos that somehow resolved into hooks. What had been sloppy aggression was tightening into focused intensity.
"That's it," Dutch said, setting his sticks down. "We got it."
Claire flipped to a fresh page in her notebook. Three weeks of notes—timing issues resolved, missed changes conquered, equipment problems they'd learned to work around. "We need gigs. Real ones."
"Jerry keeps a booking calendar at the Worm's Core," Kitty said, framing Ott as he tuned his E string.
"Do it." Claire's pen hit the page. "We need three shows minimum before anyone takes us seriously."
Ely emerged from behind the amp stack, cables coiled over his shoulder. "I've been bugging Jerry's daughter about mixing—Raven knows a lot about sound." He grinned. "Course, she acts like I'm bothering her, but I think she likes having someone to boss around."
"She's way out of your league, man," Dutch said, spinning his sticks.
"I'm pretty sure she wants you," Claire said with a smirk, still focused on her notes.
Ely's face went red. "You think?"
"Maybe. But she hasn't told me to get lost yet, so..." Ely shrugged, trying to recover his cool. "Worth finding out."
"Well, maybe we won't completely suck," Dutch said, popping the snare..
"Gonna be broke punk kids who occasionally don't suck," Lenore corrected. "Let's start there."
Saul unplugged his guitar, clicking off the Rat distortion pedal that made his clean notes snarl and bite through the practice mix. "What kind of venues?"
Claire consulted her notes—three pages of research and ideas. "Dive bars. VFW halls. Anywhere that'll let us make noise and not call the cops."
Two weeks after their practice breakthrough, they loaded into Ott's van for their first real gig. The Gator Lounge sat twenty miles outside State City—cinder blocks dropped onto weedy gravel beside Highway 14. Vietnam-era veterans nursed longnecks at sticky tables, their faces showing the kind of indifference that came from seeing too much.
The owner emerged from behind the bar, arms thick as tree trunks. "Y'all get free beer. That's it. Play what you want, don’t cause no trouble."
They hauled instruments onto a plywood platform that creaked under Dutch's kick drum. Ely hung a crooked banner behind the drums, which was just a bedsheet with "SCPK" spray-painted on it.
"Where's your amp?" Saul asked as they finished setting up.
Ott froze, instrument in hand. "Thought you were bringing it from the practice room."
"We all took our gear home last night so we could come straight from work," Saul reminded him.
Ott's face went pale. "It's still at Lenore's."
"How do you forget your amp?" Claire asked.
"I was under the hood of a Buick until ten minutes before we left," Ott said. "Hands covered in grease, running late—"
"So you just... hoped it would magically appear?"
"There's an old Gorilla amp in the corner," the owner said, overhearing their panic. "Been here since the eighties. Y'all can use it if it still works."
The ancient guitar amp wheezed to life when they plugged it in. Ott's low end came through thin and frail—guitar amps weren't built for low frequencies. But it was audible.
"Better than nothing," Ott said, though his fingers hesitated over the strings.
Claire stood at the side of the platform, arms crossed, watching twenty-eight people who hadn't looked up from their pool games.
They opened with "Downstream." Saul's voice cracked on the first line but held together. Dutch rushed the tempo, caught himself. Ott's instrument sputtered in and out, sounding like it was coming through a tin can, but you could hear the notes.
Pool balls clacked. Conversations continued. But an older man in a Korean War cap set down his beer and turned toward the stage.
A deputy walked through the door, badge catching the neon beer signs. He ordered a Bud, found a corner table, and pulled out a small notebook. His pen moved steadily as he watched the performance, taking notes between sips. After their second song, he finished his beer and left without a word.
"Moon over Marin" came next. The inadequate amp made Ott's low end disappear entirely under Saul's guitar during the louder sections. Dutch's timing fell apart when he couldn't hear the bottom. Claire bit her lip, counting problems she should have seen coming.
A woman near the bar covered her ears. Two guys cranked up the jukebox. The Korean War vet stayed focused on the stage, nodding.
When they finished their eight-song set, the owner walked over. "Play it again. Y'all ain't filled two hours yet."
Claire blinked. "Two hours?"
"That's what you booked."
They cycled through the same songs. Again. Then again. By the fourth rotation, they'd learned to work with the equipment disaster. Ott played harder to cut through. Dutch watched Ott's fingers instead of listening for the low end. Saul found spaces in his guitar parts to let the instrument breathe, clicking off his distortion pedal during the quieter sections so individual notes could cut through instead of just aggressive fuzz.
"Y'all come back when you get more songs," the owner told them as they loaded equipment. "And bring your own amp next time."
Claire stuffed napkins covered with hasty notes into her pocket, already making lists in her head.
They sat in the diner parking lot at 1 AM, windows down, engine ticking. Dutch stared at his hands. Ott cleaned strings that didn't need cleaning. Even Kitty's polish had worn off—black blouse wrinkled, stained with sweat.
"That was the worst thing that's ever happened to me," Dutch said finally. "Including the time I broke my arm falling off Chaz's roof."
"At least your arm healed," Saul croaked, his voice barely a whisper. "My dignity might be permanent."
"Two hours," Ott said, still working his strings. "Two hours of people pretending we didn't exist."
Saul slumped against the van's side panel, exhaustion hitting him like the humidity. "Maybe we're kidding ourselves. Maybe we're just not..." He trailed off, staring at his guitar case.
"Not what?" Claire asked from the bumper where she sat nursing a Dr Pepper.
"Good enough," Saul said simply. "I mean, what did we expect? We've been playing together for like two months. Those people came to drink and shoot pool, not listen to some kids play covers badly."
Dutch slammed his beer down hard enough to rattle the van's cup holders. "This sucks! We can't even play a show without getting drowned out by their jukebox."
"The owner seemed fine with it," Ott pointed out, though his voice lacked conviction. "He said come back when we get more songs."
"Fine with background noise," Saul corrected. "That's all we were. Sonic wallpaper." He picked at the duct tape holding his guitar case together. "Remember when we thought we were gonna be like Black Flag or something? Tonight we were more like... elevator music with distortion."
Lenore emerged from the restaurant carrying coffee, took one look at their faces, and lit a cigarette without offering anyone drinks.
"So that's it?" Lenore asked, settling onto the van's bumper beside Claire. "One bad gig and we fold?"
"One bad gig?" Dutch's voice cracked. "We got treated like elevator music. For two hours."
Claire smoothed out the napkins she'd been scribbling notes on, staring at the smeared ink. All that confidence from practice, all those songs they'd finally nailed, and they'd still bombed completely.
"You know what this reminds me of?" Saul said after a moment, staring at the diner's neon reflecting off wet asphalt. "Rail grinding. The whole process."
Dutch looked up from his hands. "You mean like that courthouse rail?"
"Exactly. See, when you're learning to grind, you have to commit completely. No hesitation, no second-guessing. You drop in with full confidence, you stay locked in through the rough spots, and you trust that your skill and determination will carry you through to the landing."
Claire raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you break your ankle on that rail? And a courthouse window?"
"And almost get us all arrested," Ott added helpfully.
Saul's face reddened slightly. "That was a railslide, not a grind. But that's... not the point. I’m speaking hypothetically.”
"Pretty sure it is the point," Dutch grinned, his mood lightening for the first time all night. "You ate shit spectacularly."
"But the principle is still sound!" Saul insisted, warming to his theme despite the mockery. "Look, I had a guitar teacher once who told me something that changed everything. He saw me playing all careful and timid, trying not to make mistakes. You know what he said?"
They waited.
"He said 'Never play like that again. Play bold and loud. If you make a mistake, make it twice. People will think you meant to do that, and they'll respect you for it.'"
"That's what I was doing wrong on the rail," Saul continued, gaining momentum. "And that's what we did wrong tonight. We played it safe. We tried not to screw up instead of committing to something bold. We were like..." He searched for the words. "Like words on paper when we should have been real action."
Claire looked up from her napkin notes looking him in the eyes.
"But if you're going to fail, fail spectacularly. Own it. Make it yours."
"Like when you launched off that rail and turned into a flying disaster?" Dutch asked, but he was grinning now.
"Yes! Exactly!" Saul was animated now. "I should have committed to the crash, made it look intentional. Same with tonight—we should have been louder than their jukebox, weirder than their expectations. If we're going to be background noise, we should be background noise that makes people stop and pay attention."
Dutch executed a perfect kickflip on his board nearby. "So next time we just... go for it? Full commitment?"
"Full commitment," Saul confirmed. "Even if it means breaking more windows."
Claire stood up suddenly, stuffing the napkins in her pocket. "You know what pisses me off? We didn't even get a fair shot tonight. Their sound system was garbage, we had the wrong amp, and we were playing to people who came to drink beer and ignore whatever noise was in the corner."
"But that's exactly what I'm talking about," Saul said. "We let the bad conditions make us play smaller. We should have made the bad conditions part of the show. Embraced the chaos."
"So what do we do?" Dutch asked.
Claire's voice gained strength. "We've got two weeks before Channel 47. Real sound system, real audience. People who actually came to hear music." Her eyes met Saul's. "We rehearse every day. We fix what's broken. And we show up ready to commit completely."
"What if we suck there too?" Dutch asked.
"Then at least we'll suck on our own terms," Claire said. "But Saul's right—next time we pick the battle. And when we get there, we play bold and loud."
Saul felt something click—not false confidence, but clarity. "Yeah. Next time we make our mistakes twice as loud."
KSWP Channel 47 squatted beside the industrial canal, its lot cracked and weedy. Inside, the "studio" was really just a cleared space with a makeshift stage of two-by-fours and plywood, surrounded by equipment that looked impressive from a distance but fell apart under scrutiny. Christmas lights strung around the ceiling cast everything in a sickly carnival glow.
The promoter, a nervous man in a too-tight polyester shirt, had promised them "full professional sound" and "exposure to the entire viewing area." What he hadn't mentioned was that their slot fell between the Cypress Creek Bluegrass Revival and the Heavenly Voices Gospel Quartet.
The audience filled folding chairs in neat rows: church folk in their Saturday night best, gray-haired couples who'd probably tuned in expecting wholesome family entertainment. They eyed SCPK's torn jeans and band shirts with polite bewilderment.
"This is surreal," Kitty whispered, checking her lens.
Claire studied the crowd, napkin notes from the bar crumpled in her pocket. "They look like they're waiting for a public execution. Ours."
"Full drum kit, just like I promised," the promoter announced, gesturing to the setup on stage.
Dutch climbed behind the kit, his face falling immediately. "Where's the snare?"
The promoter blinked. "The what now?"
"Snare drum. The one that goes—" Dutch mimed a rim shot. "Heart of the whole kit, man."
"Should be one around here somewhere," the promoter said, already backing away as the camera crew signaled they were going live in five minutes.
There wasn't. Dutch stared at the gaping hole where the snare should have been, then at the sad collection of toms. He tapped one experimentally—it responded with a hollow "boing."
"Can you make it work?" Claire asked, appearing at his shoulder.
"Like asking if I can fly without wings," Dutch muttered, but he picked up his sticks anyway. He started experimenting—rim shots on the tom edges, cross-sticking on the shells, finding a loose piece of wood trim from the set construction that he propped against the hi-hat stand. When he hit it, it gave a sharp "clack" that almost sounded like a snare. He started building a whole new vocabulary—hitting the cymbal stands, using the floor tom like a kick drum with his heel.
The sound guy pointed at a cable. "Plug your instrument straight into the board. We'll handle the mix."
Ott hesitated. "What about my amp?"
"Trust the equipment, kid."
"Then we make our own music," Saul declared, watching Dutch's creative percussion setup. "We adapt."
The red light went on. Live on State City public access television.
They opened with "Downstream." The result was catastrophic. Ott's low end came through as pure subsonic rumble with no definition. Saul's distortion pedal, designed to make quiet amps scream, just made the clean board input sound like an angry hornet's nest. Dutch's found percussion held an actual beat—strange, but rhythmic.
The locals winced. Chairs scraped as people headed for exits.
But halfway through the first verse, Saul made a decision. He clicked off his distortion pedal. Suddenly his clean guitar cut through the mix—jangly, clear, audible, individual notes instead of just aggressive fuzz. Dutch caught on, finding the actual rhythm instead of just noise. Ott started playing notes instead of just low-end rumble.
By the chorus, they sounded like a band again. Different than they'd planned, but coherent.
Then something strange happened during their second song. Maybe it was the absurdity of the situation, or maybe it was pure punk rock defiance, but Saul made another decision. Instead of fighting the chaos, he embraced it.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced mid-song, "welcome to experimental television." Dutch caught on immediately, leaning deeper into his found percussion setup while Ott's instrument, run through the ancient PA with its blown EQ, had become something else entirely—a low-frequency rumble that seemed to emanate from the earth itself. He leaned into it, sustaining notes that felt more like seismic activity than music, creating a wall of subsonic growl that made the folding chairs vibrate and people's chests resonate. Between songs, he kept the rumble going, turning the silence into something alive and ominous, like being inside the belly of some massive creature. What they were creating wasn't what they'd planned, but it was undeniably theirs—raw, uncompromising, born from necessity rather than design.
The crowd shifted uncomfortably, not just from the lyrics but from the physical sensation of low frequencies crawling up through their bones. One elderly woman actually looked around nervously, as if something prehistoric might emerge from the PA speakers. Several people headed for the exits during the second verse, their chairs scraping against the floor as they fled what sounded less like a band and more like some kind of primitive ritual.
By their third song, a few people were actually listening instead of fleeing. An elderly man in the front row—a Vietnam vet by the look of his cap and the way he carried himself—nodded along to "Downstream," probably mishearing the lyrics as something more wholesome than they were. When they finished, he actually clapped.
"That takes guts, son," he called out. "Making music out of what you got instead of what you want. Reminds me of playing blues on mess hall gear in Da Nang."
Saul felt something click—not just about the performance, but about what they were becoming. Not a perfect band, but one that could adapt, survive, turn disaster into something real.
"Thank you, we're State City Punk Kings," Saul announced as they finished. "Thanks for not calling security."
More than scattered applause this time. The vet gave them a thumbs up. A few teenagers who'd wandered in looked genuinely interested.
"Y'all are... different," the promoter said as they packed up, sweat staining his polyester shirt. "Not sure we'll have you back, but... different."
Deputy Mendoza materialized from the back of the thinning crowd after their set, still in civilian clothes but with his badge visible on his belt. He'd been nursing a beer at the small bar they'd set up for the "talent," watching the whole experimental disaster unfold.
This time he didn't just take notes—he approached directly.
"SCPK," he said as they packed up their equipment, not quite making it a question. "Like that graffiti on the water tower?"
"We're just playing music, officer," Claire stepped forward.
Mendoza studied them for a moment, taking in their gear, their obvious youth, the way they moved. Something flickered across his face—recognition, maybe memory. "That thing you did with the broken equipment... reminded me of something. Fear, maybe '82 at the Whisky. Lee Ving screaming over a busted PA while kids went apeshit in the pit."
Dutch's eyes widened slightly.
"X played that night too," Mendoza continued, almost to himself. "John Doe's bass cutting through all that chaos..." He shook his head, as if clearing away cobwebs. "Different time."
"You were there?" Saul asked, unable to hide his surprise.
"Different life." Mendoza's expression hardened, the moment of shared connection evaporating. He pulled out his notebook—the same one he'd had at their previous gigs. "But that was before I had a job to do."
"Word about you kids is getting around. People talking.", he continued
"People talk about everything in this town," Dutch said, his voice slightly higher than usual.
"True enough." Mendoza clicked his pen. "But when people start talking about change, about challenging the way things are... well, that's when we start paying attention." His voice carried no warmth now, all professional edge. "I've seen where this leads. Chaos. Property damage. Kids getting hurt."
Claire's hands went still on the cable she was coiling. This was more than casual interest. This was surveillance by someone who knew exactly what he was looking for.
"We're not challenging anything," Saul said carefully. "We're just—"
"Playing music. Right." Mendoza's smile was thin, knowing. "Same thing every punk band says right before the riot starts. Mayor's got us keeping an eye on... youth activities. Decency campaign and all." He leaned closer, voice dropping. "Next show you play, we'll be there from the start. Make sure everything stays... decent."
The badge caught the light as he tapped it once—a reminder of which side he was on now.
"Y'all have a good evening," he said, walking away and leaving them to finish packing in silence.
"Damn," Dutch whispered once Mendoza was out of earshot. "Did he just... was he cool for a second there?"
"Before he went full cop on us," Ott muttered, coiling cables faster.
They stood frozen for a moment, the weight of official attention settling over them like humidity. Worse than that—attention from someone who understood exactly what they were doing.
"We will be if we keep playing the same small venues," Saul said finally, surprising everyone with his decisiveness. "He can watch us all he wants at dive bars and TV studios. But what if we played somewhere he couldn't touch us?"
"Like where?" Ott asked.
"Somewhere with real security. Real money. Somewhere that doesn't care about the mayor's decency campaign because they've got bigger fish to fry."
Claire looked at him with new respect. "Private parties. Rich kids with lawyers for parents."
"Exactly. They're not going to call the cops on their own event." Saul's voice carried a conviction that hadn't been there before. "We play it smart, we play it big, and we show them we're not some garage band they can intimidate."
"That's... actually brilliant," Kitty said.
"Not brilliant," Saul corrected. "Necessary. Time to stop running from fights and start picking our battles."
As they loaded the van, Claire found herself scanning the lot for other cops, other watchers. The innocent days of garage practice were over. They were on someone's radar now—someone who knew the scene from the inside.
The question was: what was he planning to do with that knowledge?
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